凯特·布兰切特 | 什么是无国籍者

Consider for just one minute what it would be like if the country you were born in and had lived your whole life didn't consider you a citizen. No country did. You belonged nowhere. That is the shocking reality for millions of people who have no nationality. They're stateless.

请花一分钟时间想一想，如果你出生的国家一生都没有将你视为其公民会是什么样子。对，没有国家承认你，你不属于任何地方。对于数百万没有国籍的人来说，这是令人震惊的现实，他们是无国籍者。

Most people are citizens of somewhere, we have birth certificates, we have passports, we have ID cards, we have driver's license, health cards, documents proving who we are. But on paper, stateless people simply don't exist.

大多数人都是某个地方的公民，我们有出生证，护照，身份证，驾驶执照，健康卡，文件等证明我们的身份。但是在名义上，无国籍者根本就不存在。

In fact, I can't even tell you how many stateless people there are, because over half of all countries don't even count them. Globally, countries that are counting have accounted for nearly 4 million people, but in all likelihood, the actual number is much much higher.

实际上，我甚至无法告诉你到底有多少无国籍者，因为全球超过半数国家甚至不将他们计算在（公民范围）内。在全球，一些国家已统计到无国籍者的数量接近400万，但实际数字很可能比这要高得多。

Without a passport or a national ID, the list of things you may not be able to do is never-ending. Go to school, see a doctor, own a SIM card, work legally, open a bank account, own or rent a home, even get married. And statelessness exists everywhere. It's not a problem in a far-off land. It's happening in countries like yours or mine.

没有护照或身份证，你无法办到的事情可能会一件接着一件。上学，看医生，办SIM卡，合法工作，开设银行帐户，买房或租房，甚至结婚，都无法实现。无国籍者无处不在，这个问题不是发生在遥远的大陆，它正发生在你我所在的国家。

You might not even have heard of statelessness. I hadn't and I was staggered to learn of the devastating impact that statelessness has on families all around the world. So how does this happen? 

你可能根本没听过什么是无国籍者。我也没有，但当我得知无国籍者对全世界家庭的毁灭性影响时，我感到非常震惊。那么这是怎么发生的呢？

In the chaos of fleeing war, families can leave or lose the papers that are proof of ties to a country. And that can make registering the birth of a child impossible. Leaving them stateless. Or borders can change or dissolve completely, for example, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

在逃离战争的混乱中，一些家庭可能会落下或丢失证明与一个国家有联系的文件。这样就可能无法为出生的孩子登记，让他们变成无国籍者。国界改变或国家解体也会造成无国籍者，例如，苏联解体。

In some countries, if your parents are stateless, so are you. It's passed on for generations. Other countries prevent parents passing on their nationality if their child is born abroad.

在一些国家，如果你的父母是无国籍者，那你也是，它会世代相传。如果孩子在国外出生，其他国家会禁止父母放弃原国籍。

Some countries discriminate against women and don't let mothers pass on their citizenship. Ethnicity, language, religion, they've all been used as excuses to exclude entire groups from being citizens.

有些国家歧视妇女，不让母亲把她们的公民身份沿袭下去。种族、语言、宗教，它们都被用来作为把整个群体排除在公民身份之外的借口。

More than three-quarters of all the people known to be stateless are minorities. Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, Roma communities around the world, and others whose families moved generations ago to the country where they now live, but were never acknowledged as citizens.

在已知的无国籍人士中，四分之三以上都是少数民族。缅甸的罗兴亚穆斯林，世界各地的罗姆人社区以及几代以前就搬到现居国家的家庭，从未被承认是这个国家的公民。

When I went to Bangladesh, nothing could have prepared me for the depth of suffering that I saw amongst the Rohingya refugees. Stripped of citizenship in Myanmar, nearly four decades ago, they have faced discrimination, persecution and exile ever since.

去孟加拉国时，我看到罗兴亚难民遭受的深重苦难时根本猝不及防。大概四十年前，从他们被剥夺了缅甸公民权以来，就一直被歧视，迫害和流放。

So what can we do? For lawmakers and courts, we say: You have the power to challenge and change the laws that lead to statelessness. More and more countries are signing up to the conventions that aim to end statelessness.

那我们能做什么呢？对于立法者和法院来说，你们有权挑战和改变导致无国籍状态的法律。越来越多的国家正在逐步签署结束无国籍状态的公约。

In some situations, it can be complex. It can take time, effort and paperwork. In others, it takes a few words, or the stroke of a pen to give people the rights they deserve.

在某些情况下，它可能很复杂。这可能需要时间，精力和文书工作。其他情况，只需几句话，或随手签个字就能给那些无国籍者应有的权利。

To give children, the chances and opportunities in life they so richly need. Either way, it's a man-made problem that we can solve. Let's do so, because everyone has the right to belong.

为孩子们，提供他们在生活中迫切需要的机会和各种可能。无论哪种方式，这些人为问题我们都可以解决。我们这样做，是因为每个人都有归属的权利。